This is a new route opened in 2009 in kofinas north face from Jassas Uli and his wife Karina. Is is a nice and easy traditional route. The name of the route is "Via Bavaria". Below you will find a detailed description of the route along with a top as sent from Uli.

Agios Ioannis is a small village near the sea 73km away from the capital of Crete, Heraklio, and south of Kapetaniana. The climbing area has a lot to offer from 4a up to 6c+. You will need an off-road vehicle to get there as there is around 12km of really bad road.

This sector is located just a few meters before the beach on the left as you are gazing the excellent beach. Many beautiful routes in this sector. One of those (the 1st) is traditional and quite hard (6b, harder than it looks) and it takes a lot of gear, especially middle size friends. A must-climb route.

This is a really nice spot for climbing early in the morning untll around 14:30 pm which is in the shadow. Excellent rock, fully bolted as usual by Zbynek Cepela apart from route L'hypothenuse which needs a few nuts, friends and slings. To access the area follow the off road to Agios Ioannis for around 2km until yu see on your right a small stone contruction (see image below). There is a small blue sign from there pointing to the path. Follow the path on the right and then after 5 minutes turn left until you reach the bottom of the gorge and then turn left until you reach the climbing sector. You will need around 15 minutes to go there. The area is well protected from winds and offer some really great routes. Try definetely the route Kri-kri (6a, 22 meters).

Very sharp rock, completely different from all other sectors in Kapetaniana. I've been only once to this sector and wont go again. It is very windy and on some routes the bolts are not on the best possible place making hard to put the quickdraw. You will need around 10 minutes to access the area. Follow the road to Agios Ioanis for around 2km. See photo below for more details.

The village of Kria Vrisi is around 45km from the city of Rethimnon (see map below). You will need around 40-45 minutes to get there and a few more to reach the climbing area. The first routes opened from Dimitris Titopoulos (a Greek mountain guide). Since the first published routes there been a few more probably during a Cretan climbing meeting from various climbers. Unfortunately I wasn't there that day and don't have more info about those routes apart from two of them which managed to climb during my last visit.

UPDATE: Vourvachakis Thodoris sent us over the latest routes of the area. I've add them and also update a few grades which seem to be not accurate. Many thanks to Thodoris.

If you haven't read the introduction article of Kofinas please do so as it contains vital information about the area and how to access the routes described in this page. There are two ways to aproach the routes on north face of Kofinas. The first one from Sternes village (click here to see a detailed map) and the second one from Kapetaniana (click here to see that map too). Both need an off road car as in some parts of the road the surface is really bad. You can however aproach the area by walking. You will need an hour from Kapetaniana to the small church on the bottom of the routes.Four routes opened in this area at the moment, all multi pitch. One of them are still under construction so no further details will be given until we sort out the whole route.
To access the routes on the south face as described in the introduction article just take the path to the monastery of Koudouma and somewhere in the middle turn left.

A great climbing sector with plenty of nice routes with excellent view to the sea. The area face west which means no sun the whole morning until 15:00 o'clock. Some of the hardest routes (8a+) can be found here. All routes in this sector opened from Zbynek Cepela, Manolis Kampourakis and two of them from Philippe roca. To aproach the routes follow a small gorge for a while and then climb left until you reach the 1st routes. You will need around 10 minutes to get there. For the rest of the routes make your way around the ridge and you've done. That will take around 20 minutes from the car.

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